11

That was all I could tell on instinct. I really needed that spectral mapping skill. The others noticed that I had stopped, and was on high alert. I drew the string of my bow back slowly as I tried to feel out which direction the enemy was in. I scanned through the trees on the edge of the house's lawn. 

Looking for the slightest movement. I didn't have to wait for long. The beast rushed at us with little hesitation. Typical monster behavior. My arrow struck it in the flank. 

The power behind the strike was enough to throw the beast off it's course. Damn thing wasn't very powerful. It looked like a wolf at a glance. It's tail was a snake though. The damn thing was probably poisonous. 

"Don't let it's tail strike you," I warned as my new dagger came out. 

It's blade was black from the hardened armor of that level twenty tentacle beast that had come after me last night. I realized very quickly that I was one of the fastest, and strongest people here. It didn't make sense to me. I frowned to myself as I cut off the tail of the one closest to me. I wouldn't allow it to strike me. 

My movements became more fluid as I got into the flow of the fight. Joy started to flood into my body, and my thoughts cleared so all I could see was the flow of the fight. My mind started plotting out the different outcomes of each of the monsters movements. Preparing my body to take action against each, and every possibility. This clear joy of killing disturbed, and thrilled me in equal parts. 

That seemed to actually add to the high I got from fighting. I ducked low beneath another monster wolf's snake tail as it tried to strike me. Nearly doing the splits as I did. I wasn't particularly flexible so doing so was very painful. My blade pierced it's underside as I jabbed it out. 

I wasn't aiming for anything particularly important, but I was enjoying all the damage I was doing to this beast. I had moved a good ways from the group. I smacked a beast that had leapt towards me with my bow. It snapped under the pressure, and I allowed it.

I was a little irritated, but there was only so much that such shitty materials could do. I slapped aside another snake that seemed to come out of nowhere with my now free hand, and moved on to slapping my hand on the ground in a single motion. Throwing myself up into the air out of the splits the quickest way I could think of. One monster's head came off as a swordsman stepped in to help me. I was a little surprised that they'd gotten up the balls to help me, but I did need the help so I wasn't going to complain. 

No one had fired off any gunshots yet so I was one of the only people who'd leapt into action. I was glad that I was finally getting help. Although the fight had only begun a few seconds ago, those few seconds had been more then intense enough for me. I started laughing as the psychotic joy made it to the surface. I stabbed, and slashed with increasing speed as my laughter started rise. 

I nearly stabbed one of our people when the monsters stopped coming. He'd made the mistake of grabbing my shoulder before I could calm my pounding heart. I stopped myself before stabbing him. 

"Don't do that," I sheathed my blade quickly, "I could have hurt you."

I realized that I was surrounded by the corpses of seven dead monsters. Splattered in blood. Two of them were decapitated. It still wasn't enough. I was still closer to what I'd started with then I was to hatching that dragon egg. 

I checked myself for any wounds right quick. Besides the pain of doing the splits I felt fine, but I needed to pee. I walked that off. Rolling my shoulders as I felt myself out. Most of our little group didn't have any armor, but I didn't feel as if I needed it. 

Which was weird. Mainly because it wasn't as if I was invincible or anything like that. I just didn't feel like I should wear armor as if my own body was enough already. Maybe it would be eventually, but I should probably get some armor soon. I could use my crafting skill to put together some simple crappy armor. 

I touched the wolf monsters lightly. Taking advantage of the parting out function that was offered freely to the new awakened. It wouldn't last long. The month was over half gone already. We only had a few days of grace period left. 

I still needed that butchering skill. Maybe I could earn it like I did with the blade skill I'd managed to pull off. All I'd done was just stab things over, and over again. I did know how to butcher. It wouldn't be difficult for me to earn the skill manually. 

Now wasn't the time to show off that particular life skill. People were already disturbed by how easy it was for me to kill. Showing that I could dismember things just as easily as I could kill them wasn't something that people would be happy with. Remnants of the old world still made people look at things like butchering as if it was some horrible thing. I frowned. 

People would understand once they had no choice, but to butcher their kills themselves. I picked out what I needed for a new bow, and used one of the beast cores to get a better bow. Wolf bone bow. That was what the system called it. It ended up taking two cores instead of one to create this bow, but it was the first enchanted equipment I'd ever had. 

This bow had a skill that allowed me to see in the dark as long as it was in my hand. I could see deep into the shadows of the trees with ease while this bow was in my hand. I let the others collect the parts I didn't need. The meat was happily collected. Meat was quickly becoming scarce back in the encampment, and many had tried it by now simply because eating crappy nearly bad vegetable soup all the time had made people miserable.